Alternatively
by Isilien Elenihin
Summary: There is no 'run.' The Doctor and Rose meet in a different situation.
1. Chapter 1

He is in London when he sees it. He doesn't particularly want to be in London; he wants to be on some uninhabited planet where he can quietly go mad and then dispense with his remaining regenerations in peace. After five unsuccessful attempts to navigate away from the city, however, he realizes that perhaps the TARDIS knows something he doesn't and he grudgingly agrees to have a look around. That is his first mistake. The TARDIS doors slam shut as soon as he's clear and though his key fits in the lock it won't turn, and no amount of cursing or door-thumping will make the TARDIS open. She sends him a very clear message in the form of a sharp shock and he glowers at the unruly ship. The effect is somewhat ruined by the finger he's got in his mouth. Superior physiology notwithstanding, electrical shocks _hurt_.

The Doctor (and is he still the Doctor after everything he's done? The Doctor doesn't kill, isn't a soldier, is too clever for all of that and all the things he's done and if he isn't the Doctor anymore than who is he, precisely?) squares his shoulders and turns around. London. Well, it would be London, wouldn't it? Most jeopardy friendly city on the most jeopardy friendly planet he's sure has ever existed. For a long time (he stops counting, he's always counted time by the rhythm of his double-heartbeat but now it's a mockery and a reminder that he is _alone_) he wanders, marveling at the obliviousness of the human race. They hadn't even realized the Time War occurred. The universe had been fundamentally altered and here they are, going about their lives of shopping and telly and chips like, like—like it is any normal day.

That's when he sees it, a strange twist in the Time Lines. Although his friends at UNIT might deny it, there is more to being a Time Lord than an impressive ship. He can _see_ Time, can chart its patterns and cycles, can play the different Time Lines like a finely tuned instrument. And right in front of him the Time Lines tangle and knot around a school. Something _profoundly_ important will happen here, he realizes, something that will change the course of the universe yet again. The Doctor (he has nothing else to call himself, his name was stripped when he was cast out and he has been the Doctor for almost a thousand years, and you can't teach old dogs new tricks, as the saying goes) frowns. His history is _perfect_ and he's certain, even after the shocks and changes the War caused, that nothing of _that_ caliber happens in twenty-first century London.

Curiosity overcomes his irritation at the TARDIS's meddling. If there truly is an event that will serve as a focal point for universal existence occurring he should at least check it out. If his people were still around (and even though he hated them when they were alive, disdained their insistence on non-interference that was only applied to events they didn't think were important enough to meddle in) they would have had 'round the clock watchers carefully charting the course events were taking. As it is now there was only him, and he would have to be enough. A satisfied tingle worms its way through his skull and he rolls his eyes. The TARDIS, he was finally realizing, could be more annoyingly smug than even cats could manage.

* * *

He takes a position at the school. At first it's expediency: it gives him a reason to be there and will allow him to take a small flat nearby. He is well acquainted with human domestic tendencies, although he's always disdained them in favor of his TARDIS. It is, after all, the perfect home. London flats, he finds, are less than ideal on his budget. He could tap into his UNIT account. It's still open (Alistair sees to that, he reckons) and active but he refrains. They would be watching and as much as he enjoys his old friend, the man is far too observant and he does not feel like having a heart-to-heart. He will investigate this tangle, make sure that it goes smoothly, and then persuade the TARDIS to take him to a planet where his death will not bother anyone. So he settles for a one-bedroom flat with roof access and marches back to the TARDIS.

He finds a suitcase waiting for him in front of the TARDIS. She continues to refuse to open. He tries everything—cajoling, pleading, promising to give her that overhaul he's been considering and replacing her spatiotemporal stabilizers. She is not moved, and he leaves in a huff, dragging the suitcase behind him.

* * *

The Doctor finds, to his surprise, that he likes teaching. His first choice would have been biology or physics (given the current status of both subjects he was _more_ than overqualified) but the only position open had been literature. He takes it, of course, because any position will do (he is brilliant, after all, a certified genius on Earth, at least, if not on Gallifrey). He expects boredom, perhaps monotony. He doesn't expect to be challenged, not by people who were only a few thousand years away from swinging from the trees.

He is. The school is in a less-than-ideal part of the city, right up against one of the larger housing estates, something that begins with a 'p'—Powell, that's it, the Powell estate, and most of his students are children of the working poor, kids whose parents have scraped and saved to give them the opportunity that the parents didn't have.

He thinks that one of them might be an alien. Shireen Costello is a holy terror. Most of the other teachers know her by reputation. She's clever enough, if she would apply herself, but (from what he's gathered from conversations overheard) she's only there because her parents guilted her into going. She's going to marry Gareth and he's got a decent job as a mechanic and it worked out well enough for her mum, so she figures it'll work out for her. She's not looking to make her life better, she declares loudly. Most of the other students are afraid of her, but the Doctor finds he enjoys the tongue-lashings she can hand out, not that he wants to be on the receiving end. Surreptitious scans reveal that she's most definitely human and he finds he's disappointed. One more theory on the nature of the supposedly critical even he's here to witness is a bust.

Shireen is not an ideal student. She barely applies herself and when she deigns to come to class she spends most of her time reading a fashion magazine hidden behind her book (the tricks these kids think they can pull—do they really believe he's that slow?). She loses much of her appeal when he realizes she isn't an alien in disguise. Her friend, however, shows a good deal of promise. Rose Tyler is clever, quick, and kind, and he thinks (not for the first time) that if he was still in the business of traveling with companions she would be ideal (but there will be no more traveling because he's _tired_ and _old_ and _broken_ and a _murderer_ and people who destroy their own species don't get second chances).

* * *

They're studying Shakespeare when he first notices her. She stumbles over the words, but once she understands what Will is trying to say she's remarkably quick in understanding what he _means_, which is why he's surprised when she does poorly on an exam. In discussion she's vibrant and sure and she holds her own. Unlike Shireen she's serious about getting her A-levels, unlike Shireen, he thinks, she wants to get out of the estate, wants to _do_ something with her life.

He leaves the test face-down on her desk with 'see me' written on the front. There are things he should be doing, problems he should be solving, but—it's nice to affect change without having to blow something up or doom a species to extinction or even bother with local law enforcement. Sometimes it takes years for his changes to come to fruition (years that he doesn't have to spend waiting for a thank you or even an acknowledgment) but he can _see_ the influence he's having on these kids. And it's nice (but it doesn't change his destination, doesn't weaken his resolve because he's _decided_).

When Rose hangs back at the end of class she's hesitant, more uncertain than he's ever seen her (and granted he's had limited experience with her but the day she fails to speak her mind he's pretty sure the sun will fail to rise out of sheer amazement). She's wearing her hair over her face today and it seems odd, like she's hiding.

"You wanted to see me, Dr. Smith?" He really should think of a better name, but John Smith has served him well enough in the past (and it's not like he's going to need a name, where he's going). She's looking at him a little odd and the Doctor realizes that she was talking, just there, and he missed it.

"Yes, Miss Tyler." He waves at the chair next to his desk and she sits. He leans back in his chair and watches her for a minute (long enough for her to fidget) before he holds out his hand for her test. She gives it to him, her teeth worrying her bottom lip. He hates the stilted formality that accompanies the education system, as if keeping that extra distance between teacher and student ever did anyone any good. But he isn't here to fix the system, he's here to make sure that whatever needs to happen to keep the universe ticking happens.

"We've gone over this in class," he reminds her gently.

She looks down, ashamed. "Yeah, I know."

"Then what's the problem? You're clever, Rose." Her first name slips out like it belongs on his lips. "I know you can get this."

Her lips twist in frustration. "It's these words—I dunno what half of them mean, and reading it just—it doesn't work."

"Have you tried reading it out loud? Everything is so visual now, but in Shakespeare's time people didn't go to _see_ a play, they went to _hear_ one." He rifles through the piles of papers on his desk (organization has never been one of his strong suits) and pulls out a worn copy of _The Complete Works of William Shakespeare_. It's a very eighth him thing, reading Shakespeare to a pretty girl, but his voice is rough and hard, like his body, and he's lost the sophistication that his eighth self seemed full of, the delicate intellectual replaced by the weathered mechanic. The universe's janitor, him.

Rose watches his face as he reads and he can almost _feel_ the moment she understands. Her enthusiasm and joy over such a simple thing warms him all the way through. He could use a bit of that in his life. Everything's better with two.

* * *

It's been three months (months!) since the Doctor arrived at this ordinary school in the middle of London and the Time Lines remain tangled and he _still_ has no idea why. Yesterday he broke down and bought a television and if he's not careful he'll be hanging curtains from the windows and whinging about coasters. Domestics, in any form, give him the willies.

They are studying _Othello_ when he assigns a class trip to the Globe. Plays, like he told Rose, are meant to be experienced, not just read. He doesn't miss the way her face falls when he announces the trip, doesn't miss the wistful look she gives Shireen, or the sympathetic smile the other girl flashes back.

She hangs back after class as she often does now. They talk about Shakespeare, mostly, sometimes other writers (he has a fondness for Eliot that's continued on in this body and she has a natural curiosity streak a mile wide).

"I can't go on the trip," she says after a moment. They've got _The Complete Works_ open in front of them again and he turns to look at her, his (frankly magnificent) Time Lord brain a bit distracted by her nearness (and when did he start noticing that she smelled like vanilla and almonds and caramel?) and it takes a moment for him to come back to the real world (such as it is).

He leans back in his chair. "Why not?" And he doesn't sound disappointed, no, not him.

She plays with the hem of her jumper. It's a good look on her, jumpers (and when did he start noticing her clothing? When did he start noticing the tiny details that set her apart from all of the other students in his classes? When did he start looking forward to seeing her tongue poke out from between her teeth like it did when she was being mischievous and clever?). "Don't have the money," she admits, and he can tell that it pains her. She's got pride, after all.

He posts the ticket through the mail slot in a plane envelope with only her name on the front. He should leave, should head back to his (temporary) flat and see if the TARDIS will let him in (she'd deigned to move herself to the living room but had given him no other sign that she was going to cooperate), but he hesitates. It's safe enough—he's wearing a perception filter and she's just an ordinary human girl.

Her mum (it has to be her mum, he knows it's just the two of them, she told him one rainy afternoon that her dad died when she was small and he is _not_ trying to be a father figure, not at all) wanders in to the kitchen in a very pink dressing gown. She sees the envelope, bellows out "Rose!" and the girl comes running. The gift puzzles her, but she opens it and pulls out the ticket.

The look of wonder on her face is a thing of beauty.

* * *

The Doctor is walking back to his (still temporary even though it's been four months) flat when raised voices give him pause. Hers he recognizes immediately, but the other (male) is unfamiliar to him. The voices echo off brick and cement and he traces them back to their source. Rose is standing in an alley just past the school with her back to him. There's a boy standing in front of her, looming over her. He's leaning in, leering at her, and she's got her arms crossed in front of her body. Her back is ramrod straight and rigid and the Doctor can practically feel the tension radiating off of her.

"Come on, give us a kiss," the boy jeers.

"Go away Jimmy," Rose bites back. "I told you, we're through."

"You don't mean that, babe." His hand reaches out, cups her face and turns it. He's holding her hard enough to leave bruises and something ugly and dark rears its head in the Doctor's chest. _No one_ touches Rose like that, not when she doesn't want to be touched.

She's no damsel in distress, though, and she's had enough. Her knee connects with Jimmy's groin and he grunts in pain. His hand falls from her face to cup his bruised testicles and the Doctor wants to cheer. "Never touch me again you slimy git!" she yells. "Or so help me I'll have the police here so fast your head'll spin!"

Jimmy straightens with obvious effort. The backhand he gives her sends her reeling into the wall and _that_ is it. The Doctor, unable to watch any longer, stalks into the alley.

"Clear off, mate," Jimmy sneers. "This ain't none of your business."

"Oh, I think it is, _mate_." He has to wear suits for the school (and really, him in a suit?) but he's got his jacket on over it and he stands in front of Rose with his arms crossed and he _knows_ that he's imposing. The Oncoming Storm, the Daleks named him, and at that moment he looks it. He feels it, because she's clever and brave and she deserves _so much more_ than the abusive idiot who has the _nerve_ to _hit_ her. And he hopes that the boy will take the hint and leave because he wants to pound the little tosser into the ground. He's angry, this go 'round, angry and searching for an outlet and Jimmy Stone might just give him one.

"I'll be back for you, y'_slag_," Jimmy spits as he turns to leave. "Let's see how brave you are when you've not got some navy watchin' out for ya." Something sends chills down the Doctor's back, like someone walking on his grave—or a Time Line solidifying.


	2. Chapter 2

A/N: Nothing you recognize belongs to me! I had the day off from work, so I celebrated by writing this chapter! Originally I was aiming for a two-part bit, but Rose decided she had something to say. So, now it's going to be a three-parter! Look for the final part sometime next week! Enjoy! :D

* * *

The rough bricks of the wall cut into her hands as she catches herself against them. Her lips throbs and blood drips down her chin and her cheek, courtesy of Jimmy's rings. She can see Doctor Smith move to stand between her and Jimmy out of her peripheral vision. He is as solid as the buildings surrounding them and she knows that she is safe. A quiet voice in the back of her head whispers that she will always be safe, as long as he is there.

Jimmy turns tail like she knew he would. He's brave as a lion when his prey can't fight back, but she is Jackie Tyler's daughter, and she sends him off with one final salvo. "Fuckin' wanker!" she shouts after him. "And stay away!" Talking hurts and she wonders what her mum will say. Jackie knew about the drinking and the other women, but Rose hadn't had the courage to tell her mum where she'd gotten the crescent-shaped scar over her heart or the burn on her arm, or the thin scar hidden in her hairline.

"Rose Tyler," he says, in that way he has. It makes her shiver every time, the way Dr. Smith says her name. It is low and—intimate. No one says her name like he does. In the classroom it's always 'Miss Tyler,' but when he's helping her study or explaining something in the privacy of his office her name rolls off of his tongue like he's tasting the syllables. He is leaning against the wall in front of her, his arms crossed over his chest. "It would be you." His eyes are chips of ice in his craggy face but she doesn't think she imagines the way they soften when he looks at her.

She tries to crack a smile and almost manages. "Jeopardy friendly, mum always says." Rose doesn't see him move, but suddenly cool fingers are ghosting across her cheek, tracing the outline of Jimmy's handiwork.

"He hurt you," Dr. Smith murmurs. A muscle in his jaw twitches and his eyes blaze like blue fire. It is terrifying and exhilarating, having his complete attention like this. He's been carefully controlled before, meticulous in his observation of the divide between teacher and student, and Rose cannot help but feel that something is changing between them. Her heart is pounding and she feels like she did so long ago, when she was a child and she'd race to the roof when a storm hit. The thunder would roar and the lightening would flash and the wind would buffet her back and forth, but she knew down to her bones that she was safe, that the storm would not hurt her.

The rough skin of his fingers (rougher than she would expect from a teacher) catches on the edge of her injured cheek and she flinches away. It breaks the fragile mood and he straightens, pulls himself back within the parameters of their positions. "Let's get you cleaned up," he tells her. "Your mum would murder me if I brought you home in that state."

"Oh," she says, clearly taken aback. "You don't have to walk me home or anything. I can make my own way."

He dismisses her words with a wave of his hand. "I don't trust that stupid ape as far as I could throw 'im."

"Jimmy's a tosser," she agrees, "but he's a coward."

"So he'll be back with friends," Dr. Smith points out. He sticks his hand in his pocket and pulls out a handkerchief, which he offers her. Rose takes it and wipes at her face. "My flat's just around the corner. We'll clean you up good as new, and then you can show me where you an' your mum live."

* * *

He leads her to a squat building a few blocks away. It's ugly, but most of them are in this part of London. God knows the Powell Estate is no beauty. Its concrete and steel construction always calls to mind a prison more readily than a home, and that association sticks with her. His place, though, his is different. It's sparsely furnished and sort of empty, but she can see the sky from his windows. The breeze brings a faint melody to her, something haunting and lovely that she can't place. She doesn't recognize the instrument and a quick glance reveals nothing about the source of the song, but she shrugs it off. A musician must live in the flat below his. Dr. Smith disappears for a moment, but he returns with a strange looking canister (antiseptic, maybe?) and a plaster. Rose holds out her hand to take them from him, but he shakes his head.

"Let me," he says.

"You a real doctor, now?" she asks, skeptical.

"Oi!" he replies, his voice heavy with feigned offense. "I'll have you know, Rose Tyler, that I have a great many impressive skills."

She laughs. "You're full of it!"

He rewards her with a smile. It's softer than his usual manic grin, a curving of the lips she fancies is just for her. "Sort of." The spray from the canister is cold but it dulls the throb of her lip and cheek. "So," he begins, as he spreads the plaster over her cheek. "Who's this 'Jimmy,' bloke?"

Rose tests the plaster and is pleased when it holds. "Boyfriend, first. Ex-boyfriend, now."

"That wasn't the first time he's hit you." Dr. Smith's voice is soft but she can feel the anger in him like a banked fire: given half a chance it will flare into full blaze.

"Why d'you think I left him?" she asks.

"Why be with him in the first place?" Dr. Smith counters.

Rose hugs her herself. She isn't proud of what she did when she was with Jimmy. "He wasn't always like that." It's a weak protest, a fact she knows all too well. "They never are, I guess. He was older and he was in a band and he was sweet, at first. He kept telling me not to worry about school, that when his band got their music out we'd be able to go anywhere, do anything. My mum, she's spent most of her life on the Estate doing hair an' scraping by. I want to _go_ places, _see_ things. There's a whole _world_ out there an' I thought—I thought Jimmy'd be a way out." A bitter smile tugs one corner of her mouth up. "Stupid, stupid me. He'd stay out late after gigs, drinking with the band. They had groupies, but I figured it was just part of the lifestyle, an' I was the one he was coming home to—when he came home. But he never made it big an' he started drinking bad, and when he drinks he's mean."

"Did you go to the police?"

She looks at him incredulously. "Where've you been livin' Dr. Smith? I'm from _the Estate_. The cops don't care about one girl gettin' beat up. They're too busy tryin' to round up the dealers an' the gangbangers to stop for some stupid bint who was dumb enough to shack up with the first man to show any interest in her."

"Rose Tyler," he says firmly and the anger is back; it licks up him like fire on dry logs and she can feel the heat on her face. "You are _not_ stupid and whatever he did is _not_ your fault. You're brave and clever and he is a sorry, worthless sod."

She says nothing (what do you say to a declaration like that?) but something loosens and tightens in her chest and it's like the whole of the world stretches out in front of her, open.

* * *

They are silent on the walk home. He appears lost in thought and she is too busy trying to calm her racing mind to engage in conversation. Bev calls out to her from the window of her flat and Rose waves at her half-heartedly. She hopes her mum isn't home, but even if she's out Jackie'll hear about this, hear from half-a-dozen loungers and idlers that an older man in a suit walked her daughter home.

"Well," Rose says with a forced smile as they stop in front of her door. "This is it."

Luck is not with her. The door jerks open and an irate Jackie Tyler fills the space it occupied. "Rose Marion Tyler!" she shouts. "Where the 'ell have you been? Not a word of warning, not a phone call! I've been worried sick!" She pauses long enough to breathe and to notice that her daughter isn't alone. She takes in the state of her daughter's face and the Doctor's clothing in less than a second and rounds on him. "An' who are you, then?" she demands.

"This is Dr. Smith, mum," Rose tries to explain. "He teaches Lit. at school, an' he walked me home."

Jackie glares at him. "Are you tryin' to seduce my Rose?" Her voice is sharp and shrill.

The Doctor blinks like a deer in the headlights. "No!" he replies emphatically and holds up his hands like he's expecting a slap.

"Mum!" Rose exclaims at the same time.

"Don't you 'mum' me, missy!" Jackie snaps back. "What am I supposed to think, you bringing a man home hours after you were supposed to be back?"

"I'm not bringin' him home!" Rose struggles to keep her voice low. They are, after all, in public and the last thing she needs is someone to talk at school. "Jimmy showed up an' Dr. Smith was nice enough to walk me home an' make sure he didn't come back." She rolls her eyes and turns to face the Doctor, who looks rather like he wants to bolt. "Sorry about Mum. No good deed goes unpunished."

He straightens his jacket. "Ta. I'll see you in class tomorrow, then. An' Rose, remember what I said."

She is sure she's blushing as she waves him off. Her mum lets her into the flat but the barrage of questions begins as soon as Rose steps through the doorway. "What was he talkin' about, then?"

Rose shakes her head. "S'nothing, Mum, really."

Jackie folds her arms across her chest. "Didn't look like nothing to me, Rose Marion Tyler. There's only one thing men like him want, and it's not what's in your head, it's what's in your knickers!"

"Well you'd know!" Rose shouts back, unable to stop herself.

"That class is giving you airs and graces! Don't you be forgetting who you are, Rose Tyler. You're a chav from a council estate, an' that's never gonna change!" Jackie is furious and words fly like bullets from her lips. "You think a man like that'd want you because he _cares_ about you? Because he _loves_ you? What've you got to offer besides a decent pair of tits and a quick shag? You mark my words, girl, he'll leave you rode hard an' put up wet, an' don't think I'll take you in when you're knocking on that door with a baby in tow! "

It's childish, she knows, but Rose has no other answer. She runs from her mother's hateful words, runs to her room (a room that hasn't changed since she was eight years old) and slams the door behind her. She doesn't understand, not yet. She's too young and all she hears is her mother telling her that her dreams are futile. Much later, when she's standing on a spaceship in the fifty-first century for five and a half hours after she's watched the man she loves crash through a window in a one-way trip to the past to save a beautiful, rich, well-educated woman (who fancies him)—then she will understand. She will wait, of course, because she loves him, but when he returns she will wear the Powell Estate like plate mail, will arm herself with the knowledge that she is _fantastic_ and _brilliant_ and that class and status do not dictate her place in the universe (and her place is at his side). She will remind him that she is Rose Tyler, former shopgirl, savior of the universe _and_ his equal. She will remember where she came from, because the universe will not forget, and if she wears it proudly, if she holds it up for all to see no one can use it against her. It is only when she pushes it aside, hides it away, that it becomes shameful. Reinette may be lovely and talented and the uncrowned Queen of France—but she is the Bad Wolf, and she walks in eternity and she will be _damned_ if she lets him forget it. But now, now she is nineteen years old and her mother just called her a whore in front of a man she might be in love with. She curls into a ball beneath her heavy pink comforter and cries herself to sleep.

* * *

When Rose was small she thought that working at a fancy boutique like Henrik's was glamorous. After all, those girls got _paid_ to play with beautiful clothes all day! It sounded like heaven. She is finding out that, like most things, the childhood fantasy far outstrips the reality of the situation. Folding clothes is monotonous at best, and the condescending attitudes of many customers make her want to scream. _How_ could her mum think she'd ever be happy with a job like this one? She makes it bearable by tuning out the repetitive clubbing music designed to subliminally increase one's desire to shop, and going inside her own head.

What does she want? Once upon a time, she thought she wanted Jimmy. Life with him hadn't been all bad, not at first, anyway. He'd seemed like he was going places and he didn't laugh when she told him about getting off of the Estate, about seeing the world. He didn't tell her that she was getting above herself; he agreed with her. He'd take her for rides on his motorcycle and she could almost imagine that if they went fast enough and far enough they could leave London and its steel and concrete behind and find somewhere that her background wouldn't matter, where people wouldn't look down their nose at her because she didn't have the right accent or the right clothes.

It hadn't lasted, though. For all of his pretty words he was just a thug who took his frustration out on others—namely, her, when life didn't go his way. He is one arrest away from a prison sentence, she knows, and _that_ is not the life she wants for herself.

_There's always Mickey_, her mum's voice echoes through her head. Mickey Smith is her best friend, has been since they were both little. He's sweet and kind and decent, and he's got a good job fixing up cars at the garage. He got his A levels but never went to school—his gran needed someone to bring home a paycheck, as she was blind, and after she died he hung around, stayed on the Estate. Rose knows he fancies her, that he always has, but he's always been like a brother to her. And—he's content where he is. When she told Mickey she was going to drop out of school, to leave London with Jimmy, he'd looked at her like she'd grown a second head. He doesn't understand how much she wants to see the world beyond her home. No, she doesn't want Mickey, and it wouldn't be fair to lead him on by pretending that she does.

And then—then there's Dr. Smith. He's older than she is, probably as old as her mum, and he's her teacher and she doesn't know if he even _thinks_ about her as anything but a promising student and all of these things should give her pause—but she can't help but remember the way he looked at her in that alley. Even in class his eyes search her out. Shireen's noticed. Rose denied it, of course, when her friend asked if something was going on between the two of them, but now, now she thinks she may have been wrong. He's seen the world (more of it than she has, anyway). He's called her clever and brave and _no one_ has _ever_ called her clever. When he looks at her with those blue, blue eyes she feels like he actually sees _her_, not just the bleach blonde hair and second-hand clothes, and lower-class accent, but Rose Tyler. If she's honest with herself, then she wants Dr. Smith. There's something in his eyes, something wounded and broken and it makes her want to hold him close. There's a world of hurt in him, beneath the scathing sarcasm and manic enthusiasm that he wears like a mask, and she aches for him.

* * *

They're studying the Imagists before Rose works up enough courage to attempt anything. He's taken to walking her home when she stays after class for help, and though her mother continues to glare at him Jackie says nothing. He's worried about Jimmy, and Rose thinks it's sweet, if a bit unnecessary. She hasn't seen hide nor hair of the bastard, not in the three weeks it's been since Dr. Smith chased him away. She hasn't been back to his flat since that day, but he seems more at ease around her. He hasn't called her 'Miss Tyler' in ages and there's a light in his eyes that goes beyond pride when she aces an exam or points out an interpretation he's missed. He hugs her when she does especially well, and she relishes the feel of his arms around her, holding her close.

A slight adjustment brings her head around and her lips against his. They're dry and cool and much softer than she thought they'd be. They also fail to move against hers. Time passes, enough so that it isn't just hesitation that keeps him from responding, and let it never be said that Rose Tyler can't take a hint. She pulls back, takes a deep breath, and opens her eyes.

He is watching her rather like she imagines one would watch a particularly dangerous predator. Tension is writ large in the set of his shoulders and lines around his eyes. His face is carefully blank. Something in her throat tightens and an ache springs up in her chest, a dull pain that echoes the burning of her cheeks. Embarrassment, grief, fear—they all war for expression, but she is no school-girl, not anymore (despite her location in a school). She knows how to deal with rejection.

"Sorry," she says when she can speak. "Sorry. I thought—you and I—but I got it wrong. I'm always doing that, getting it wrong. I'll just—I'll just go."

He stops her with two words: "Rose Tyler," and it's really, _really_ not fair for him to say her name like that, not when he doesn't mean anything by it. Her heart jumps, like it always does, traitor that it is. A rough palm slides across her cheek and lifts her face gently until she's looking him in the eye. He's smiling and she doesn't understand why. It isn't the manic grin he gives her in class when she gets a question right or shows him up. It's soft and radiates warmth. "Precious girl," he murmurs, and then he slides an arm around her waist and bends his face down and he's _kissing_ her like she's something precious. He's gentle at first, questioning, and it takes a moment for her brain to process what just happened. She responds, of course she does. She's been dreaming about this and the ache in her chest fades away. He is solid against her and he tastes like coffee and those biscuits that he loves. She brings a package every so often, after he proclaimed them to be fantastic one day. It always surprises her, how grateful he seems for them, like no one has bothered to give him anything in a very long time.

She wonders why she is thinking about biscuits when he's busy snogging her breathless. The brain, it seems, deals with surreal situations by fixating on something normal. When he lifts his lips she holds onto the lapels of his jacket for support. He is, she decides, quite impressive, although she'll never tell. His ego is quite big enough already.

"You haven't got it wrong," he tells her quietly. "Not at all. I just couldn't believe that someone like you would ever want someone like me." The sadness is back in his eyes and the curve of his lips as he gives her a crooked smile. "I can't give you a normal life—a house and a job and two and a half children, all of those things that humans want."

"Some humans," she corrects him.

"Most humans," he replies.

She shrugs. "Never been interested in all that, myself."

"You're young." It's the last thing she wants to hear and he knows it. She opens her mouth to protest but he lays a finger against her lips. "Hear me out." Some of the tension returns. A muscle in his jaw twitches and she can feel him prepare himself for something, steel himself against—what, exactly? "I'm not human," he says after a long moment.

She raises an eyebrow. "You look awfully human to me."

He shakes his head. "You look Time Lord. We came first."

"Right," she drawls. A bit of anger seeps back in, because he isn't allowed to kiss her like that and then try and push her away. "Look, is this your attempt to scare me, make up some outlandish story and convince me that you're nuts? Because if you don't want me, have the decency to just tell me and I'll shove off."

He grabs her wrists. She struggles for a moment, but he's strong, far stronger than he looks (and he looks pretty damned strong). Fear climbs up her spine like ice water. "What are you doing?" she demands.

He places one of her hands on the left side of his chest and the other on the right side of his chest. She's familiar with the feel of a heartbeat. She can find her own pulse, and she felt it plenty of times, lying on top of Jimmy after sex. His heart pulses beneath her left hand—and also beneath her right. She looks up at him, eyes wide. "I have two hearts," he says simply. "Can't fake that, not with the state of medical technology in this time, anyway. Give it about three hundred years and then you lot will have a passable artificial heart." She says nothing. His hearts beat faster than her single one does, or maybe he's excited. She's trying to process what has just happened, trying to make sense of it in her mind.

"An alien," she says slowly, "who teaches Lit? In London?"

He laughs. "S more plausible than you'd think."

She frowns. "What's a Time Lord?"

"Me." His voice is hard and broken. "Just me."

The ache is back in her chest, the desire to soothe away whatever has pained him and it overwhelms her trepidation. She reaches a hand up to cup his cheek. He covers her small hand with his own and looks down at her. His face is unreadable, but there is something like desperation in his eyes.

"I want you, Rose Tyler," he murmurs. "I want you like precious little else—but I'm not human. And sometimes the people around me get hurt. Sometimes they die."

"I won't," she says with all the arrogance of youth.

He gives her a smile like broken glass and kisses her again.


	3. Chapter 3

A/N: Nothing you recognize belongs to me! So this was supposed to be the end but the sex totally decided to derail me and thus we're only 1/3 of the way through what was supposed to be the plot for this chapter. Look for part 4, which will hopefully be out soon. . The poetry is from 'Venus Transiens,' by Amy Lowell, and there's a bit from the Bible in there too. Enjoy!

* * *

The Doctor knows that Rose doesn't believe him, not really. He doesn't blame her, even though it hurts his hearts to imagine what she will say when confronted with the inescapable reality that he is _not_ human. He has traveled with enough humans in his long, long life to know the differences like the back of his hands—all nine sets of them. There are things he can't give her, like children, cues he won't pick up on, like what she really means when she says she's 'fine' (but that might be a bloke thing), and interactions he _never_ wants to happen, like meeting her mum. She's fine now, surprisingly so, but what happens when the TARDIS finally allows him to leave? Will she go with?

He opens his mouth to ask her these things. "My name isn't John Smith," is what comes out.

She blinks. "Oh. What is it?"

"The Doctor."

"The Doctor," she repeats, one eyebrow raised.

"That's me." He grins and gives her a little wave. "Hello!"

"That's not a name," she argues. "It's a job."

"An' Rose is a flower," he counters. "What's your point?"

"If you don't want to tell me your name," she begins, but he cuts her off with a sarcastic snort and an exaggerated eye-roll.

"I'm an alien, Rose. Did you really think my name would fit into your own Ape naming system? If I really wanted to shut you up why would I even tell you?" She's clever enough to catch his drift, even if she doesn't want to let herself believe it. He hopes she'll stay once she does. He can peel back the layers of cynicism and disbelief that the universe piles onto its young, but only if she stays.

* * *

He takes her to see the TARDIS. The old girl is lonely, and what better way to bring Rose to reality than to show her something impossible? It's the perfect plan, he thinks—but like most of his plans it doesn't work out quite like he imagines.

"So, she says as he fishes around in the pockets of his jacket for the key. "This is your space ship?"

"Space and _time_ ship," he replies as he slides the key into the lock and hopes that she will let them in. The lock clicks sharply as they key turns and he hides a sigh of relief in a flourish as he opens the door. He gestures for Rose to enter and she does with a mischievous smile.

He will never get tired of watching wonder spread across her face. It shines out through her skin, lights her up like a candle. It's one of the most beautiful things he's ever seen and that's saying something. She runs back out the door and races around the TARDIS, verifying that it is a wooden box (at least on the outside) before she heads back in.

"This is impossible!" she exclaims.

"For you," he allows. "This is Time Lord science. You lot make a passable attempt, but you never get it quite right."

"Can you hear it?" Rose asks, her eyes wide and intense.

He cocks his head to the side. "Hear what?"

"The singing." She closes her eyes and a soft smile curves her lips. "I caught a bit of it before—thought it was someone else in the building—but it's so _loud_ in here." She hums something soft and haunting and he realizes two things simultaneously: a) that she has a lovely singing voice, and b) that his ship approves of her, because the singing that she's hearing is the TARDIS. It is rare for his ship to make her opinion of his companions known. Most of them would find the notion of a sentient, living ship too much to take and so she remains in the background, translating and monitoring—but not with Rose. And what will she say, when she finds out who is making the music echoing in her head?

"That's the TARDIS," he tells her eventually.

She opens her eyes. "The what?"

"TARDIS," he repeats. "T-A-R-D-I-S, stands for Time and Relative Dimension in Space."

"It sings?" She's watching him again with those wide, curious eyes. There's not a bit of fear in them, not yet, and he wishes they could stay like this forever, that he could show her all the wonderful and beautiful things in the universe and none of the ugliness. There is too much ugliness in this world alone, he knows, for that to ever be a reality.

"She," he corrects. "She's alive, you know, and aware." The song changes and the lights flicker—a greeting.

Rose's answering smile is wide and gleeful. "Hello," she replies, and lays a hand on the nearest support strut. "My name is Rose."

They stand for a moment in silence as the song of the TARDIS ebbs and flows around them. He hears it all the time in the back of his head. Before the war he took it for granted, like the presence of the rest of his people, but now, in the stark emptiness that burns in his mind—now he clings to her like a lifeline. None of his companions have _ever_ taken to Her this fast (except for Susan but he won't think about her, refuses to think about his granddaughter and the way she died like all the rest of his people), but then he usually meets them when they've just learned that everything they ever knew is wrong—and he hardly ever kisses them.

"Come on." His voice echoes in the suddenly quiet console room. "There's a swimming pool somewhere around here."

If possible, her eyes grow wider. "You have a _swimming pool_?"

"I have a sentient, dimensionally transcendent space-and-time ship," the Doctor grumbles, "and a _swimming pool_ is what impresses her!"

She wanders ahead down the hall, pausing every few steps to peek into a room. "Prove you can take me somewhere," she calls back to him, "and then we'll talk."

* * *

They find the swimming pool after they find two spare-parts closets, a kitchen fresh out of the 1970's, and a room filled with strangely-costumed rubber ducks. Well, they find what _used_ to be the swimming pool. The last time the Doctor opened that door it led to an Olympic sized pool in what appeared to be a typical, 21st century facility. This time, however, he opens the door on a rainforest. _Is this what you were doing_? He asks the TARDIS silently. She humms condescendingly at him, as if to say that this room was the work of a moment, not several months of silence.

"This impressive enough for you?" he asks.

She pats the doorframe. "Yes, it's lovely, thanks."

He turns to smirk at her and notices she isn't speaking to him—she's speaking to the _TARDIS_, who is insufferably smug in his head. It is lovely, though, he has to admit. The ceiling is lost in the leafy canopy of old growth trees that loom over them, casting the space around them into shadow. A thick carpet of moss blankets the floor and muffles their footsteps. Birdsong fills the air, accompanied by the sound of wind through a thousand leaves. Brightly colored Orchids wrap their roots around tree limbs and stretch their leaves towards the sun, which breaks through over the re-formed pool. It's part of a river now. A waterfall juts out in front of them, sending a cascade of clear, cold water tumbling over rocks and losing a curtain of mist into the air. The basin of the falls is wide and deep and almost completely still past the swirling waters just below the falls. A flash of color on the damp rocks lining the basin catches his eye and he sighs.

"What?" Rose asks, her eyes still on the spectacle before them.

"That," he says, and gestures towards the rock. "I think you'll find it's in your size."

It is.

'It,' is, as he discovers, a bikini. A TARDIS blue, very tiny bikini, and he wonders why she's bothering to wear anything at all. Not like the scrap of cloth his ship seems to think is appropriate swimwear _hides_ her body. If anything, it accentuates the curve of her arse and the swell of her breasts. It draws his eyes to places he's just recently learned are permissible—places his hands itch to touch. She's a surprisingly good climber, for a city girl, he notes as she scrambles up a tree to grasp the thick rope hanging from an outlying branch. She wavers for a moment and he moves forward almost unconsciously, arms out to catch her, but she steadies herself and waves him away.

"Jericho Street under-sevens gymnastics," she tells him with a tongue-touched smile. "An' I got the bronze!" Rose grasps the rope with both hands, and jumps. She cuts a graceful arc through the air, and when the rope is almost parallel to the ground she lets go. He will remember her like this forever, he thinks as she arches her body into a swan dive. (_For me, / You stand poised / in the blue and buoyant air, / Cinctured by bright winds, / Treading the sunlight. / And the waves which precede you / Ripple and stir / The sands at your feet_.) And he marvels at the coincidence that made him a teacher of the only literature that can accurately capture her beauty. He will remember her as Amy Lowell remembered her lover: as 'Venus Transiens,' Venus in Motion.

The splash when she pierces the water is smaller than he thought it would be, and she is under long enough to give him cause to worry—but she breaks the surface with a gasp and a shower of water droplets that spread ringlets across the pool around her. "Well, come on!" she calls, treading water.

"Come on what?" he calls back.

She grins at him. "The water's fine!"

His eyebrows shoot towards his hairline. She gestures at him impatiently. He crosses his arms over his chest and shoots a glare at her. She pouts, and when that has no effect, shrugs and floats, letting the water hold her up—and he is thinking about Rose Tyler on her back and suddenly his suit and jacket are stifling. The water enfolds her, caresses her, and he wants to wrap himself around her and feel the softness of her skin against his. He wants to find all the places that will make her squirm and gasp and moan. He wants—oh, he _wants_, and he realizes for the first time that there is no one left to stop him. No one to enforce the rules he's always denounced.

_She'll die_, a little voice whispers in his head, but he pushes it away. Yes she will, and so will he, but if he wants and she wants—why shouldn't they? Does she want, he wonders? She is the one who initiated the kiss. She seems to think they shared some deeper bond. And he—well. Maybe he doesn't have to die just yet. Maybe—maybe he can have a second chance. Maybe he deserves one. Maybe, just maybe the universe will be kind.

She wants him to swim? A devilish grin spread across his face. Well, then he will swim. Without a suit, as the TARDIS had failed to provide one. He strips off fairly quickly, although it takes him a moment to find a branch suitable for safeguarding his jacket. The rest of his clothing is replaceable, but that jacket is unique and there's no way he'll risk it getting ruined for a quick dip. Three long strides bring him to the edge of the pool and he hesitates for a moment. Rose is ignoring him. Fine lines crinkle around his eyes. She's not the only one who can be mischievous, after all. He jumps.

The Doctor performs what he believes to be a stupendous cannonball and when he surfaces Rose is glaring at him, once again treading water. "What the hell was that?" she demands, eyes flashing and mouth set in firm, angry lines. It takes him two swift strokes to position himself in front of her and two more to back her against the smooth stones lining the pool. The water is shallower here, but it still hides her from his view. He, being taller, is more exposed and he can almost feel her gaze on him tracing twin trails of fire down his chest. She worries her bottom lip with her teeth and his eyes are drawn there like magnets.

"Do you want this, Rose?" he murmurs. He is bending down slowly, oh, so slowly and almost unconsciously she is rising to meet him. Each pulls the other in, like gravity, and it takes more control than it ever should for him to hold himself away from her, barely touching. She leans forward to bridge the gap and press herself against the planes and angles of his body but his hands on her shoulders hold her still. "Rose," he says, his voice low and gravelly. "Do you want this?"

She regards him solemnly through half-hooded yes. "God, yes," she whispers finally. "I've wanted it for _ages_." And then she is in his arms, blazing heat against the cool water. He tangles one hand in her hair while the other rests in the curve of her hip as he kisses her breathless. She, however, goes exploring. It's the first time he's been with her without wearing multiple layers, the first time she's been allowed to touch. She learns the feel of him, the way his skin has a texture that's subtly different, the way his heartsbeat thrums against his chest, the way he's surprisingly ticklish on that last rib, just above the waistband of his boxer-briefs. He, of course, has many more senses than a human man and they are in overdrive, filling his mind with information about this woman named Rose Tyler.

He can taste the want on her lips, hormones and pheromones beneath the strawberry lipgloss and the sweet-tart lemon biscuits that he likes with his tea broadcasting her desire as loudly as if she shouted it from the rooftops. He feels a bit dizzy—all those biochemicals that she isn't even aware of permeate the air around them and play merry havoc with the receptors in his brain. Humans and Time Lords are distinct species and therefore unable to produce viable offspring, but they're similar enough for this.

She's several thousand years ahead of the curve, he thinks, as her hand wanders down his chest to stroke his erection through the fabric of his pants. He can feel the heat of her through the cool water and the contrast sets him gasping.

She's mischief and fire, his Rose, steel wrapped in silk. He wishes he had more ot give her, because she deserves flowers and chocolates, dancing and dating. She deserves a change at a normal life with a bloke who isn't old and tired and broken, someone who can match her, joy for joy. His last self, with that ridiculous hair and elegant, refined nature, he could have wooed her like a princess.

Except that she isn't. She is honest, is Rose, and despite what her mum says she never pretends to be anything she isn't. And he, well, he's no prince. They fit together in a strange sort of backwards way, but they fit and really, that is all that matters. So he kisses her with blazing intensity, pouring all of the stormy passion that seems to fill this regeneration into making love to her. She strokes him again and he groans.

"Minx," he admonishes, his voice a growl in her ear.

"Whatcha gonna do about it?" she challenges, her voice a breathy whisper.

He shifts his focus from her lips and tongue to her neck. She tastes different here, salt and cool water instead of lipgloss and biscuits. The flavor of her arousal is stronger thanks to the chemicals in her sweat. A flicker of gold catches his eye and he pauses. Time shimmers and wraps around her. Time lines flicker on her skin like strings of golden glitter and dance in her eyes. Every Time line, _every single one_ twines about her like an affectionate kitten and tangles around her. The possibilities are literally endless and he feels like he did on that night so long ago when he gazed into the abyss, into Time itself—and it gazed back into him. He feels small and vulnerable and elated, as if all of the universe is stretched out before him (_Ask and ye shall receive, knock and the gates will be opened wide_). And he laughs.

Rose thinks he's laughing at her. Her eyebrows scrunch together and there's that little line between them, the one that shows up when she's cross or concentrating very hard, or he's taken the last biscuit. He kisses her until it smoothes away and she's found that spot that makes him shiver.

"Rose Tyler." He rolls the words in his mouth and doesn't miss the way she shudders. "You are an impossible thing." Because he's been waiting for _months_ for _her_. Did the TARDIS know, when she refused to navigate him away from London and locked him out? Is this what she saw?

Rose has retained enough of her wits to retort, "an' this from the two-hearted, time traveling alien."

He presses kisses to her nose, her eyelids, her lips, her neck. "You," he murmurs, "you are _fantastic_." She is here and he is here and everything is new. For months he has been drifting, waiting, existing and now—now he wants to _live_ again. He's been so tired, so weary—all he's craved is rest but his second wind has caught up with him now, and he feels like he could run forever, if she'd run with him. He's breaking all the rules of his people, but maybe—maybe it they'd learned to _feel_, if they hadn't bred out the instincts that lived and breathed in her, maybe they wouldn't have gone mad. She's nineteen years old and human and one day he will lose her—but not this day. Not now. And he vows that whenever the TARDIS lets him leave, he's not leaving without her.

"O-okay," she replies. Her voice catches when he bites the juncture of her shoulder and her neck lightly and her fingers flex, digging her nails into the skin of his back as she shivers. It sends heat rushing through him and he fights the urge to push her against the smooth stones that line the basin and take her right there.

She turns the tables on him. The Doctor has a feeling that this will be a regular occurrence with Rose. She wraps her arms around his neck and pulls herself up him, wrapping her legs around his waist and pressing her center against his cock. He holds her easily; superior physiology isn't just a boast, it's a simple fact. His arms are full of warm, willing human woman and it feels so good that he almost can't believe it's real. What if it isn't? He wonders. What if he's passed out on the floor of the TARDIS, waiting for death to take him and all of this is just the last bright sparkings of his mind as it fails?

The feel of her teeth tugging gently on his earlobe brings him back to reality. "Doctor?" she murmurs and he knows she caught his hesitation. She's far too perceptive, his girl. The water holds her, lets him move one hand from beneath her arse to tug at the strings that hold her bikini top in place. He's always had clever fingers and this regeneration is no different in that respect. It takes him less than two seconds to get the knotted cords hanging limp and tangle-free.

A hand cups his face and he meets her eyes. Rose looks at him seriously, studies his face like a particularly vexing bit of verse. He peels her top off, presses her back against the smooth rock so that the water and her legs around him will hold her up. She arches back on the cool stone, her hips pressing insistently against his, and raises her arms above her head in a languid stretch. It's convenient and no doubt intentional the way her position brings her breasts in close proximity to his face.

He takes the hint. His lips close over one nipple and his fingers tease the other. She moans and shifts her hips against him, drawing a groan from deep in his throat. They're barreling toward completion like a freight train and a voice in his head warns him to take it slowly, reminds him that if she sees all of him as he is she will run screaming from him. One of her hands slides up his neck and caresses his closely-cropped hair. When her nails scrape against the skin of his scalp he bucks helplessly against her. Smugness curves her lips as she looks down at him through half-hooded eyes.

_Slowly?_ He wonders incredulously. What about _this_ is slow? They kissed for the first time less than two hours ago and he's about two seconds away from shagging her. She circles her hips and he revises his estimation. "Do that again," he growls, "and we won't make it to the bedroom."

"Maybe I don't wanna," she replies and that look is back in her eyes, the challenge.

He loves a challenge, always has, and he's not about to back down from this one. "Your wish is my command," he tells her, "just be careful what you wish for." His hands move to the ties of her bikini bottom and she lets her legs fall away from his waist. He misses the heat of her immediately.

"Your turn," Rose says as the Doctor lets the cloth fall from his fingers.

"Patience," he chides. She rolls her eyes and opens her mouth to tell him exactly what he can do with his 'patience,' but he slides one long finger inside her and a gasp is all she can manage. A wicked grin dances across his face as he catalogs her reaction to every press and stroke. He wants to learn to play her body like the time lines, to ride the crest of her pleasure like the fires of a supernova. He slips a second finger in and she arches here hips toward him.

"Please," she whimpers. He sets his rhythm to the beat of her heart and she rides his fingers, moaning when he brushes his thumb against her clit. He wants to watch her come undone beneath him, to bring her with his fingers and lips and tongue. He wants to flip her over and take her from behind, to feel the smooth skin of her arse against him. He wants to make her hoarse from screaming. He wants to shag her rotten and lick the sweat from the valley between her breasts. He is going to fuck her six ways from Sunday, and in a time machine that saying is surprisingly literal.

"Doctor," she moans and he loves the way she says his name. Something stirs in him, something ancient and furious and possessive, burning with the memory of the Dark Times. She is _his_.

"Again," he orders and twists his fingers inside her. He quickens his rhythm and she raises her pelvis to meet him.

"Doctor!" she gasps out as her fingers clench, her nails digging into his shoulders.

"Again," he repeats and buries his face into the crook of her neck. She smells like sweat and hormones and _home_ and he wants to bury himself so deeply inside of her that no one will ever be able to separate them again. He wants to hold her against the emptiness and let her heat beat back the void that screams in his head.

She comes with his name on her lips. She pulses around his fingers and he can _feel_ the inferno of her orgasm against the edges of his consciousness. It would be such a little thing to bring his hand from her hair to her temples and slip inside her mind. She's clever and kind, he knows, and it's been _so_ _long_ since he's felt anyone that close.

The Doctor restrains himself, just. Later, there is time for that later, there _will_ be time. Humans with their puny little brains, they think sex is intimate. They have never tasted real intimacy and he doubts they ever will. Telepathy is so much more than the quick tricks that the movies show, so much more than words in his mind. Telepathy is knowing, feeling, _being_. She sighs when he slips his fingers from her and watches with a lazy smile on her face as he discards his pants.

"No tentacles, then?" she asks, her voice light and teasing, just this side of breathy.

He raises an eyebrow. "What is it with you humans and tentacles?"

"Never seen alien bits before,' Rose replies with a shrug. "Not sure what to expect." She takes him in hand and he closes his eyes and takes a deep, shuddering breath. When he opens his eyes she's smirking at him. He places his hands on either side of her head, leans in, and proceeds to kiss away her smugness. She's released him when he lets her breathe again and he can feel her solitary heartbeat against his chest. She holds onto his shoulders, uses the buoyancy of the water to wrap her legs around his waist again. He bites back a curse as she presses just _there_, so close to where he wants to be.

"You think you're so impressive," Rose murmurs in his ear as she slides herself up and down his length.

"I _am_ so impressive," he growls. Finding the right angle is key and his hands grip her hips, holding her in place as he slides in. She's slick and tight and he takes a moment to adjust, but she is impatient as always, and squirms against him, trying to draw him in deeper.

"_Doctor_," she moans, long and low and his control shatters. He wanted it to last, this first time, but instinct takes over and her legs tighten around his waist as he pulls out and then he's thrusting into her, hard and fast and she's urging him on with lips and teeth and whispered words. It's primal and animalistic and all about the body, skin and sweat and that little gasping noise she makes when the friction between them is just right. His world narrows down to her breath against his skin and the strawberry scent of her shampoo and the building pleasure that sets his nerves on fire.

She comes first, clenches herself around him and he's over the edge, falling and burning and whispering her name in a language that no one speaks, anymore, no one but him.


	4. Chapter 4

A/N: So, this is it! I hope you guys enjoy this as much as I've enjoyed writing it! As per usual nothing you recognize belongs to me. I've got a bit in here of Siegfried Sassoon's 'Repression of War Experience,' and a bit of ee cummings' 'i carry your heart [i carry it in]' as well.

* * *

Rose has a bedroom on the TARDIS, not that she needs it as they're still stranded in this one, linear timeline, but the Doctor knows the value of personal space even on a ship as large as his. And when she comes with him she will need a place of her own. She's a firecracker, his Rose, and he, well, he's never been good at talking about problems. It's much easier to push them under the rug and let life get on with it but he doubts she will be amenable to that. It never ceases to amaze him how anger can make all the vastness of space seem small.

In the classroom they try for normalcy, but he can't help but notice that she stands closer to him than she would before. He can't help but notice the way her top rides up just enough to expose a sliver of her stomach when she raises her hand to answer a question. She hangs back at the end of class like she normally does and they barely make it into his office before his tie is curled around her fingers and she's pulling his head down for a kiss. He contemplates shagging her on his desk for one delicious moment but the ramifications of being caught, while minimal for him, would be severe for her and he will not risk it. When she presses herself against him his hands itch to touch her and when she is with him the emptiness between his hearts lessens and the silence in his mind is not as loud as when she is gone.

She comes to see him whenever she's not working and they aren't at the school. He ponders blowing up her job when the long silence of the night weighs down on him but eventually decides against it. He isn't sure where this compulsion to copulate has come from; none of his previous bodies suffered from it. He supposes that it could just be a symptom of his rebellious nature manifesting in a previously unknown way, but the timing screams 'biological imperative' and what was that quote from that movie—the one with the dinosaurs? Oh yes: 'life will find a way.' His lip curls as he remembers the blind arrogance of his people. They thought that they were above all the messiness that comes with living, the anger, the jealousy, the hatred; and they sat in their ivory towers while the universe burned until finally they couldn't deny what he'd been saying as long as he can remember—that evil needs to be fought. That what affects the universe affects them, but by then, by then it was too late. It is incredibly ironic that he is the one who survived. His people had always found him lacking, always believed him to be mad or dangerous and occasionally both, no matter how many times they elected him president, but at the slightest sign of trouble they were begging him to come and fix it until finally there was no solution but the final solution.

The scrape of Rose's teeth against the sensitive skin of his neck draws the Doctor into the present. When she pulls back he can see the question in her eyes but she doesn't press. It can't last, this hesitant acceptance, the result of their newness and her insecurity. He can read the signs in the way she flinches sometimes when he surprises her and the way she doesn't talk about the scars on her arm and her chest. Someone hurt her, hurt her badly and that makes him furious, because he loves her fire and steel, her stubbornness and her quick wit. So he shows her every way that he can, with his hands and his lips and his eyes that she is worth so much more than she thinks she is.

* * *

They do more than shag, of course. The TARDIS still stubbornly refuses to budge but when Rose is with him his ship opens her doors willingly. It's not optimal, not by any stretch of the imagination, but it's better than nothing. And besides, there will be plenty of time for trips (as she is, after all, a time machine as well as a space ship). Sometimes they wander down the halls together, checking the rooms and looking for places he's lost over the centuries (the Zero room hasn't come back, not since he jettisoned it four regenerations ago). Rose finds his ship endlessly fascinating and the TARDIS, in turn, seems to be inordinately fond of the girl. Often he tinkers. It's second nature now and there's always something that needs fixing. Rose sits on the jumpseat and watches him most times, but occasionally she ventures out by herself, looking for whatever secrets his ship sees fit to reveal.

She always finds something extraordinary. One time it is an authentic, Victorian-era ballroom and of course that leads to a trip to the Wardrobe to find an authentic(ish) dress and a great deal of pouting when he refuses to change out of his jumper and jacket; another day she stumbles into a scale model of the glass pyramid of San Kloon and he adds that to the continually expanding list of Places-to-take-Rose that he has going in his head.

Today he finds her in the gardens. He wanders through the structured, formal section that the TARDIS maintains (this regeneration, while as dexterous as the others have been, is not one for gardening), past the Japanese koi pond and rose bushes that climb their white lattices and the silent serenity of the zen rock garden. For a moment he panics because not even he has seen all the rooms the TARDIS has, and he could search it for probably the rest of his lives and still not find her. His ship humms at him, part amusement and part exasperation, and urges him forward to a door he thought was lost in the destruction and terror of the War.

Two suns shine a smoldering red high in the simulated sky. The atmosphere is thicker than Earth's and the alien elements color it a pale orange. He stands frozen for a moment, unable to walk into the waist-high red grass that blankets the scene. A gentle wind blows through a million shining silver leaves and carries a spicy, earthy scent he never thought he'd find again. The TARDIS pulses in his mind, a warm bundle of worry and compassion underlined by insistence. Rose is inside and he cannot stand in the doorway forever. He blinks back tears that have gathered in his eyes, takes a deep breath to steel himself, and steps inside.

He doesn't have to go far to find her. Twenty or so feet in, the ground begins to slope gently upward into one of the rolling hills that mark the beginning of the mountains that loom off in the distance. Rose is lying on her back, hands cushioning her head, discarded trainers next to her still sock-clad feet. Her eyes are closed and her face is turned towards the suns. The corners of her lips tilt up and her hair spread against the dark loam and red grass shines like spun gold. Iridescent butterflies with wings as large as his hands flutter around her. They pause at the brightly colored flowers that grow mingled with the grasses and ride the warm wind. One of them, especially adventurous, it seems, lands on the tip of Rose's nose. Her lips curve more fully into a smile as she opens her eyes to study it.

"Already picking up admirers?" he asks dryly, his voice purposefully light as he stands above her. The butterfly, startled by his sudden advance, drifts away and Rose sighs in feigned heartbreak. "Not the most constant lover," he notes and lies down next to her, mirroring her position: hands behind his head, ankles crossed, but he leaves his boots on.

"The pretty ones never are," she murmurs.

"Oi!" he objects in mock-outrage. "I'm right here, you know. Tryn' to say that I'm ugly, Rose Tyler?"

She rolls onto her side and cocks her eyebrow at him, disbelief writ large on her face—and then she catches sight of something in his eyes and the teasing falls away. For a long, silent moment she studies him with fierce intensity and he returns her gaze. Something in the mood shifts as she reaches out her free hand and lays it on his cheek. "No," she says finally, "never that. You're not pretty, but you're intense. S'like standing in the eye of a storm, sometimes. Like a hurricane—there's all that destruction going on around and it's terrible but it's beautiful too." The tip of her tongue pokes out through her teeth in the smile that's one part mischief and one part innocence and completely deceptive. "So not pretty, no, but dead sexy."

No one has ever called him sexy before, and he isn't exactly sure how to respond, so he doesn't. She takes his silence to mean—something, and rolls onto her back, arms at her sides. As always, he mirrors her. "What is this place, anyway?"

"I thought it was lost," the Doctor replies softly.

"It's beautiful," Rose offers. It's simple and sincere and there are tears in his eyes again, because he can never go home. He pushes the thought away most of the time, tries to ignore the way that he could never stand the place when it was around, the way that he had no patience for the rest of the stuffy, stiff Time Lords and their backwards, isolationist ideals, the way he could never leave fast enough.

"Gallifrey," he tells her eventually. "It was called Gallifrey."

Rose doesn't reply, but she reaches over and laces her fingers through his and together they lie on a bit of a planet that no longer exists and watch the wind blow through the silver trees and the butterflies dance over a sea of red grass.

* * *

A week later they're studying the poets of the Great War and the Doctor and Rose have their first row. He covers it because he has to—the knot in the time lines hasn't resolved yet and the TARDIS still refuses to leave, so for now he _needs_ this job, as much as he hates to admit it. War has always been a touchy subject. He thinks that violence on a whole is a waste, something that happens because people who use weapons end up thinking with their guns and not their brains. Or at least, he used to think that. Now, now he's been a soldier and the words of the men who lived and died and fought and wrote in the trenches speak to him in his blood and bones.

He barely makes it through the lesson. His hands are shaking and when he tries to write on the blackboard he drops the chalk, twice. He knows the kids will talk because kids always do, but that doesn't matter. _She_ matters and he can feel her eyes on him like a weight, pressing down on his shoulders and making it hard to breathe.

The trust in her eyes, the complete and utter faith she seems to possess nearly breaks him, because what has he done to deserve it? She thinks that she knows him, hell, she thinks she's _safe_ when 'with him' is possibly the most dangerous place she could ever be. He told her that people who travel with him get hurt. He told them that sometimes they die. He didn't tell her that sometimes he has to make a choice and that's what kills them. He didn't tell her that he participated in a war that had a death count of over a quadrillion. He didn't tell her that he has unwritten the histories of entire _planets_, that he has caused entire _species_ to have never evolved, that he has committed genocide, that all the oceans of all the worlds cannot wash the blood off of his hands. (_it's bad to think of war, / When thoughts you've gagged all day come back to scare you; / and it's been proved that soldiers don't go mad / unless they lose control of ugly thoughts/ that drive them out to jabber among the trees_)

She waits for him after class, like always, and if he was thinking more clearly he would wonder what she tells her mother (if she tells Jackie anything at all) about where she is when she doesn't come home. But all he can see is burning and all he can hear is screaming and the air tastes like ashes and fire. Because he killed them, he killed them all. He killed Leela and Andred and their _children_ and Drax and Romana and Susan, oh _Susan_. He turned her out of the TARDIS, out of her _home_ with one shoe on her foot and he told himself over and over that he was doing what was best for her, that she would be happy with that David Campbell boy. But none of it mattered in the end because in a flash of silent fire she was quietly unwritten and the universe kept on ticking like it always does, like it always will, long after he and everyone who ever knew him is gone.

His pace quickens; his stride lengthens until he is very nearly running down the street. Rose is forced to jog to keep up with him—and for the first time in a very long while he does not take her hand. He hardly notices her; there are monsters in his head and he cannot stop the screaming.

* * *

When they reach his flat the Doctor goes immediately to the TARDIS and lays a hand against the smooth wood of the ship's exterior. Rose shuts the door as quietly as she can. He's always been a bit fragile, a bit broken. It's part of what drew her to him, honestly, a burning desire to light up those stormy blue eyes, but now he's gone cold and aloof and silent and she doesn't know what to do. For a very long moment she watches him lean against the ship, his forehead pressing into the wood and his hand resting next to his face. He is so still that she can't be sure he's even breathing.

"Doctor?" she asks quietly, and receives no response. She lays a tentative hand on his arm and he flinches away from her. Rose tries to tell herself that he's having a bad day, that _something_ has gotten him beyond shaken-up, but it still hurts. "Doctor," she tries again. "What's wrong?"

He can feel the concern radiating from her like heat from pavement on a summer's day. It should be soothing and if this was any other time he would wrap himself in the warmth of her compassion, but today it makes him furious. "Everything," he bites out and pushes himself away from the door. "This whole _universe_ is wrong!"

"I dunno what you mean," she tells him, her voice as calm and soothing as she can make it—but she hates when people take their issues out on her (she gets _far_ too much of that at work, thank you very much) and whatever did this to him, it wasn't her.

"Of course you don't," he scoffs and she bristles. "How could you? Your whole species thinks it's so smart, so evolved." He mutters something that definitely isn't English and doesn't sound like _any_ language Rose has ever heard before. "Stupid apes haven't even figured out _gravity_ yet! But you've figured out war, you have. Well done, you figured out how to kill more people faster—that's progress!"

"Oi!" she snaps. "I didn't do any of that!"

He glares at her. "Haven't tried to stop it though, have you?" She presses her lips firmly together and gives him a look that he's half surprised doesn't light him on fire, but he's hit his stride and this body is _so good_ at righteous fury. "You sit here, well-fed an' clothed an' goin' to a decent school. That makes you _royalty_ an' you should _care_ what happens to this world! Do you even know what's goin' on outside London?"

He tells her. In graphic detail. He tells her about war and pestilence, about corruption and indifference, about greed and cruelty. He shouts when she tries to talk over him and when she claps her hands over her ears and he wouldn't be surprised if one of his neighbors calls the police, but he's too far gone to care. Tears glitter on her cheeks and her eyes are red and swollen and she's shaking, ever so slightly, but he continues on his rant until finally he has run out of horror to pile on her.

Silence stretches between them for a long time. He's starting to come down, the red haze that he was lost in fades as what passes for adrenaline is metabolized. Rose takes a single step forward and he opens his mouth to find the words to apologize, but before he can, her palm connects with his cheek hard enough to snap his head to the side.

"You," she grinds out between clenched teeth. "You are _such_ a _bastard_." He touches his cheek gingerly. There will be a mark. "I might just be a _stupid ape_," she snaps, "I might not be some _high an' mighty alien_, but I'm pretty sure that none of that is my fault."

"Rose," he begins but she cuts him off.

"No." Her voice is hard and brittle. "Not after that. You wanna be alone? Fine. Be alone."

The door slams behind her and he swears that time has stopped because he blinks and twenty minutes have passed, twenty minutes of him staring at the space where she used to be (_where she never may be again_, a little voice reminds him). Anger flares in the back of his mind, where the TARDIS resides and he doesn't bother to protest. Rose called him a bastard.

He feels a bit like one.

* * *

_He dreams of burning, of smoke and ash and the end of all things. The field where he and Rose had lain is cracked and bare beneath his feet, stripped of all life. The silver trees are charred and twisted stumps and when the wind blows it brings only the scent of destruction to him. Far in the distance, nestled in the shadow of two enourmous mountains is all that remains of the Capital. The dome is cracked and broken and thick black smoke rises to the heavens to blot out what little he can see of the suns. The air burns his lungs with every breath. Spaceships lie scattered about him, great chasms carved in the dirt from when they crashed down. They are so much scrap, now, just twisted hunks of metal. He wanders for what seems like hours, looking for someone, anyone. He yells until his voice gives out. _

_ There is no response. There is never any response in these dreams. There is only smoke and ash and death—and all of it his fault. _

_ And then he hears the screams. He is off like a shot, running full out (and that's something for a Time Lord) because this is different and it can't be different and please please please let there be someone left someone else please please please let him not be alone. The thoughts circle in his head like vultures and scream like a banshee. They sync up to his heartsbeat and for the first time in so long he has hope. _

_ He forgets that you can't have despair without it. _

_ The cries lead him into the city, into the heart of the destruction. It was beautiful once, grand, stately buildings, delicate spires that seemed to stretch right to the heavens, and the Panopticon in the center, large enough so that you could fit all of Earth's armies into one quadrant. A flash of color in this greyscale world catches his eye and he turns._

Rose_._

_ She is stretched out on the cracked marble steps of the Panopticon in a mockery of when she had last lain in the garden. Her white dress (purity in some cultures—death in others, two guesses as to which his belongs, and the first two don't count) is smudged with ash and dirt and stained bright, brilliant red over her heart. She is one more victim on Time's altar, sacrificed to the universe. Her eyes are wide and staring and her arm is stretched out towards him. The glint of metal catches his eye and he kneels. Her TARDIS key is clasped loosley in her hand, the silver chain wound around her wrist. He smooths her hair back from her face, closes her eyes, places a single kiss on her forehead—and then he leans back and howls his anguish to the empty sky. _

He wakes in a sweat. His throat feels like sandpaper and when he rubs his eyes his hand is shaking. Just a dream, he reminds himself firmly. It's just a dream.

It feels real.

* * *

Rose isn't in class the next day, or the day after that, but Shireen Costello is and she gives him a look that makes him wince. The TARDIS hasn't let him in since he yelled at Rose—every time he slides the key into the lock she shocks him and insists that he apologize. He has a feeling that Shireen agrees.

She waits until the classroom empties out at the end of the day, and then stalks up to his desk. He is sorting papers (they're already sorted, they've been sorted, but she doesn't need to know that) in the hopes that she will see he is busy and leave.

She doesn't. Instead, Shireen stands stiffly in front of his desk until he looks up. "Yes, Ms. Costello?" he asks in his best 'bored and arrogant' voice.

"What did you do to Rose?" She glares at him and taps her foot on the floor, clearly expecting an answer.

"I don't know what you're talking about," he replies levelly.

"Bullshit." The words are out of her mouth almost before he's done speaking. "She won't talk to me, she won't talk to her mum, she won't talk to _anyone_. She didn't even go to work yesterday, an' that's _really_ not like Rose." Shireen crosses her arms over her chest and raises an eyebrow. "So what, you two have a row?"

He blinks at her. She rolls her eyes. "You think I didn't know? Honestly, I dunno how the rest of the class doesn't pick up on it. The two of you are so _obvious_."

"Yes," he says finally. "Yes, we had a row."

Her eyes linger on the faint red mark that graces his cheek. "She gave you that, then?"

He winces. "Yes."

For some insane reason Shireen laughs. The Doctor doesn't find it particularly amusing. He hasn't touched Rose in two days, hasn't felt the gentle pressure of her emotions and her thoughts on the edges of his consciousness. He crosses his arms over his chest and gives her what Rose always calls his 'dribbled on your shirt' look. Shireen either doesn't notice or doesn't care. "You deserved it," she says after she stops laughing. She chews on her cheek for a while, and then digs out a pen. "But she's miserable right now, and lately she's been—happy. Happier than I've seen her in a long time." She grabs his hand and he frowns at her. "Are you sorry?" she asks.

He is lost. "What?"

Her voice is hard. "Are you sorry for hurting her? Are you going to try not to do it again?" She pauses, pen hovering over his palm. "Do you love her?"

Does he? He's known her for months, has been _involved_ with her for six weeks. Is that enough time to fall in love? He thinks about the way her hands fit in his perfectly, the way her smile makes him feel younger than he has in ages—the way her light brightens the dark corners of his soul and smoothes his rough edges. She's human and young, and _fantastic_.

"Yes," he says quietly.

Shireen studies him for a moment, searches his face for the truth. She finds what she's looking for, apparently, because she gives a short nod and then scribbles something on his palm. "Be here," she instructs, "at half-past six tomorrow night."

He raises one eyebrow. "An' why would I want to do that?"

Shireen rolls her eyes. "Because I'm gonna tell Rose to meet me there. And then you two can talk." He frowns. She sighs. "Look, Rose won't come to you, not after Jimmy. You gotta go to her. That a problem?"

He's never gone after someone before, never felt the need. People come and then they go, because they grow up, or they move on, or they realize that they don't need him to be fantastic. And people have turned him down—Grace most recently, because it's too dangerous, or too strange, or just not right for them.

He wasn't in love with them, though. "No," he tells her. "No, it's not."

* * *

The address Shireen gave him belongs to a club. The Doctor rolls his eyes and flashes the psychic paper and the bouncer waves him through. Inside the music is loud, thunderously loud. It beats against his skull like hammer blows. The lighting is minimal, just enough to illuminate the bar and the dance floor. Red track lighting outlines the booths against the wall and the Doctor takes a seat in the one closest to the door. He orders a drink—nothing here will get him drunk, not unless he drinks a barrel of it, and maybe the potassium in a banana daiquiri will keep his hands from shaking.

Half-past six comes and goes and Shireen and Rose fail to appear. He orders another daiquiri. Maybe Rose has reconsidered. Maybe she's realized that she doesn't need some daft alien with far more baggage than she deserves. Maybe she isn't coming.

Shireen appears at seven-thirty—alone. He is on red alert instantly.

"Where is she?" he demands.

"I don't know!" she replies. Her eyes are wide and frightened. "She was supposed to meet me at my mum's flat, but she never showed. Jackie said she left ages ago!"

_I'll be back for you_. Jimmy's words ring through his mind with the finality of the Cloister bell.

He breaks into a run.

It takes three and a half seconds to push his way through the press of bodies to the door of the club and fifteen seconds to calculate the route Rose would most likely have taken to get to Shireen's.

And then the world goes _wrong_. The Doctor staggers into the side of a building as time shifts around him. The tight, delicate knot that he has been monitoring for so long _snaps_ and the ripples _aren't_ ripples. If time is an ocean then this is a tsunami and he is standing on the shore. If he doesn't move, and _fast_, he isn't going to exist for very long. This world isn't going to exist for very long. The time lines tingle around him, tighten like a noose and it's the war all over again. Whole futures are dissolving and the street wavers around him like a mirage. What in the _whole wide universe_ has the power to do that? People are staring at him. He ignores them and continues to stagger down the street. He has to get to her. He has to find her, he has to.

* * *

The Doctor is nearly to Jackie's when the TARDIS screams at him and he freezes. There's something on the ground next to one of the myriad alleys between the housing complexes, something small and shiny against the damp black asphalt. He bends down and picks up—a key. A TARDIS key. _Rose's_ TARDIS key, the one he gave her so that she could get into the old girl whenever she wanted. She'd given him that tongue-touched smile and promptly threaded it onto a necklace she was always wearing—the one with the locket that had a picture of her mum and dad in it. So she wouldn't lose it, she told him, and the gesture had warmed his hearts. The broken chain dangles limply from his hand as he closes his fist around the small bit of metal.

She wouldn't give it up, not willingly. He takes one hesitant step into the relative darkness of the alleyway (superior physiology and all that). Terror runs through his veins like ice water, because he knows what he will find. He tries to rationalize, to deny what he has known since the time lines went to hell—but there's only one reason why she'd give up the key, only one reason why the universe would shake to its foundation. All of the time lines, every single one, had been tied to her and now they hang limp and broken.

The alley smells like rain and garbage, shit and mud, but over it all is the iron tang of blood, fresh blood. He wants to be sick. There's no time for that now, not if the slightest possibility that she isn't—he can't bring himself to think it. He has given the universe everything that he is and let it break both of his hearts, he has died eight times to preserve the time line and right wrongs. For once, _just once_, the universe can pay out its debt to him.

He finds her curled on her side, lying on the wet, muddy asphalt. One arm is wrapped around her middle, the other is extended, like she is reaching for him. He drops to his knees beside her and his hand goes to her throat and finds—nothing. Her skin is cold and damp from the rain and still beneath his fingers. There is no inhale of breath, no thrum of a pulse. He rolls her onto her back and her eyes, wide and blank, stare up at him. A thin trickle of red drips down from the corner of her lips to her chin and neck. The hand that was clutched to her stomach falls away, revealing a deep, bloody gash. He lays a trembling hand on her cheek and draws in a shuddering breath.

The TARDIS sings a dirge inside his head. Gallifrey burns. Everything ends. Everything dies, but this—this was not supposed to happen. He has seen the future, has seen the promises in the time lines that adored her, and _this is wrong_. The time lines are scattered, disorganized and threadbare. Where the fourth great and powerful human empire _should be_ there is nothing, a vast emptiness and desolation that spans for thousands of years. The past is changing, shifting, and it grates against him like nails on a chalkboard.

_This should not be_. All of time cries out against it. "I'll fix it, Rose," he murmurs. "I will."

If his people were here they'd most certainly stop him, possibly forcibly regenerate him for what he is considering—but they're not and she is. He is the only one left, the last of the Time Lords, and the universe is his responsibility. _She_ is his responsibility, and he isn't going to let her go, not without a fight, not without telling her the most important bit (_and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart_ / _i carry your heart [i carry it in my heart]_).

He leaves it lying in the mud and returns to his ship. It's just a body now, everything that made it Rose Tyler has gone, but not for long. He's going to get her back.

* * *

The TARDIS is less than pleased. The Doctor can feel her anger buzzing in the back of his skull, but he pushes it to the side when she lets him in. He cannot afford to be distracted. The threat of a paradox, of reapers and the end of the world looms and if he's going to do this, he's got to do it just right. "I know," he tells her as he double-checks his math and triple-checks the coordinates. "I never should have yelled at her, I never should have let her go. And I'm trying to fix it, but I need your help." He stands, hands on the console, head bowed. It is now or never. The last time he was in this room she was with him—they made tea and took it on the jumpseat and he showed her how he'd fixed the holographic projector. A buzz of the sonic screwdriver and the entire room became the night sky; he showed her planets and stars and everywhere he wanted to take her. She'd looked at him with those eyes, that smile that said that he _was_ so impressive, and he'd made love to her, long and slow and still not in the bed but he'd thought that they had ages.

The Doctor does nothing by halves, and when he is wrong he is _wrong_.

The lights flicker and the Time Rotor whirrs and hums and the TARDIS shakes. His brain is awash in trepidation, his and hers, but she is with him and she will do everything she can to help him bring Rose back. It's a short trip, less than an hour back in time and less than a mile in space (of course they're really the same thing but humans are just now getting that). His hearts are pounding and the strain on the time lines is astronomical. It's making him nauseas, but that could just be his body reminding him that he hasn't bothered to wash her blood off of his hands.

The TARDIS shudders once more and then stills. He checks the viewscreen—it's the right place, and close to the right time. In less than an hour Rose Tyler will walk into that alley. He strides out into the night. It's cold and still drizzling enough to annoy him. He shoves his hands into the dimensionally transcendent pockets of his leather jacket and leans against the rough brick wall of the alley. It's the same one, he realizes, in which he confronted Jimmy Stone the last time. He tips his head back and closes his eyes, lets the rain drip down his face to hide the burning tears he can't control.

"Doctor?" A soft voice pulls him from his thoughts. Rose Tyler is standing in the alley with the harsh glare of a streetlight spilling over her shoulder. She's wearing far too much eye makeup and the dress she's wearing looks more like a shirt that was a bit too long and she's got _highly_ impractical heels on—but she's alive, and she's here, and she's _gorgeous_. She is also not exactly pleased. He pushes away from the wall and takes a step towards her. Rose crosses her arms over her chest, a move which pushes her breasts into better view and frowns. "Shireen," she says, annoyance making her voice sharp. "I shoulda known."

"I know you're angry," he says. His voice is level and that's a major victory, what with the way his emotions are ricocheting around his skull. He's never been the best at bioregulation, but this is ridiculous. "An' you've got every right to be, an' you can yell at me all you want—but in the TARDIS." He motions behind him. "She's finally ready to fly."

Rose watches him warily. She shifts her weight to her other foot and the light from the streetlamp glints off of metal around her neck. His key hangs between her breasts, next to her heart. That's a good sign, right? It has to be. "All right," she says finally. He grins at her and she holds up a hand. "But there's gotta be some rules, yeah? You can't just yell at me every time you're sad or angry, especially if it's not my fault."

"I won't," he assure her. "I'll try not to," he amends when her eyebrow rockets toward her hairline. "Rose, I'm—I'm not very good at this. And my people, they didn't do this sort of thing."

"Yeah," she replies dryly, "beginning to see that." He flashes her a wounded look and she rolls her eyes, but she walks towards him and when he puts out his arms she hugs him. He's shaking, he realizes as he buries his nose in her hair. She notices too and she tries to pull away but he tightens his grip on her. "Doctor," she asks again. "What's wrong?"

He releases her only to fumble for his key. "Nothing," he replies, but he knows that she can see the shadow in his eyes, can hear the lie in his voice. "Now? Nothing at all." He shoves open the door and pulls her into the TARDIS. "All of time and space, Rose Tyler," the Doctor tells her. "Everywhere and anywhere—so where do you want to start?"

Time is slotting back into place. The time lines twine together, dance in her eyes and across her skin and the hum of the TARDIS is relaxed and joyful. This, _this_ is how it should be. She studies him and he knows that he hasn't gotten out of any explanations, that this is only a delay (and a rather short one at that) but he will take what he can get. And later, there will be time for explanations. They have all the time in the world.

A slow smile spreads her lips and mischief sparkles at him out of those deep, dark brown eyes. "You have a bedroom on this ship?" she asks, her voice light and teasing.

His own answering smile could outshine the sun. "Could do, yeah."

She links her arm through his. "Let's see the bedroom then."

"Your wish is my command," he murmurs, and brushes her lips with his own. She is here and he is here and it is Rose Tyler and the Doctor in the TARDIS—as it should be.


End file.
